Web Applications Should Be Compiled • Hacker News Board

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#41

Post by weavejester » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:04 PM UTC

trjordan wrote: post #4

Ranting aside, this seems like a valid complaint. Scaling and performance seem to be reasonably important in web applications, so why not write them in C? If the only complaint is the lack of good tools, why not build those tools? Disclaimer: I don't actually work on web apps, and therefore have no experience with these things.

The usual performance bottleneck in a website is the database, which is usually written in either C or C++ anyway. Other parts of a web application are less likely to cause performance issues, and can usually be scaled horizontally by adding more servers.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#42

Post by utx00 » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:05 PM UTC

this was either written by someone with no experience in C, or a C uber expert.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#43

Post by torr » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:07 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #22

trjordan wrote: post #4

Ranting aside, this seems like a valid complaint. Scaling and performance seem to be reasonably important in web applications, so why not write them in C? If the only complaint is the lack of good tools, why not build those tools? Disclaimer: I don't actually work on web apps, and therefore have no experience with these things.

Because most scaling problems in web apps are ultimately architectural. Yes, you may need to buy a second server sooner rather than later if you run Ruby instead of finely tuned C or C++, but for most apps you're going to need to worry about a second database server and replication before that, and long before reaching either you will have enough traffic that you'll need to prepare to handle front-end scaling properl…

> As for developer availability - good luck to him finding good C programmers

Are you saying it's difficult in general to find good C devs? Because it would seem that's the case for C++, but not for C.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#44

Post by edw519 » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:13 PM UTC

"I predict in the future all the good web engineers will be moving to compiled languages, and all the academic idiots programming social networking applications, ajax widget home pages, and projects to better improve our democracy will be staying behind coding in the latest and greatest slow language, going to circle jerk conferences to hear some scumbag just oozing hubris from every pore tell them to get in shape and learn to fly a kite."

+1 for "academic idiots"

+1 for "improve our democracy"

+1 for "circle jerk conferences"

+2 for "scumbag just oozing hubris"

I just hope his c isn't as poetic as his prose.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#45

Post by st3fan » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:13 PM UTC

I don't think the guy is troll. I think he simply doesn't know better. This is a classic case of micro-optimization. While he should look at the bigger picture. It is all about global architecture.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#46

Post by JulianMorrison » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:15 PM UTC

Ruby vs C misses out the middle ground of SBCL, Java, Scala, Haskell.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#47

Post by Kalimotxo » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:16 PM UTC

His point is valid, but the bottom line is that hardware resources are far cheaper than human resources today. Yes, many of us know C, but a lot of us would rather use the abstractions provided by scripting languages.

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#48

Post by mildweed » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:16 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #2

Not a bad troll. Not the best I've ever read, but not bad, either.

At least he's planning on putting his money where his mouth is. If he creates this framework, more power to him!

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#49

Post by PhilChristensen » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:20 PM UTC

Sweet merciful lord. Is this guy channelling Zed Shaw or what?

Apart from all the hand-waving and generalizations, this guy doesn't sound like he's ever really a webapp under serious load.

I'm not a Ruby guy, so I don't know how things fly with that, but I've never once had a problem with a webapp being slow because of the language it was written in. Bad database queries, unnecessary assets being loaded, definitely. But CPU-bound limitations caused purely because of the cost of interpretation of a scripting language? Not so much...

Re: Web Applications Should Be Compiled

#50

Post by kingkongrevenge » Tue, Jun 02, 2009, 2:22 PM UTC

I don't see how it's possible to make a good framework in C. It lacks the necessary abstractions. It lacks even basic vital things like namespaces. Why on earth would someone attempt this in C rather than C++?

You could come pretty close to simply rewriting a scripting framework in C++. I don't know what you can get done in C. It will be so dependent on programmer conventions it will be hideous.

People actually have made some damn good C++ frameworks. See asio. What are the C ones? Any complex C system devolves into a mess of macros, casts, and naming conventions.